Apple Universal Dock A1371 Teardown

Two months ago, I bought the new model Apple Universal Dock. It sound good through the line out to my home audio system.

This Apple Universal Dock model number is A1371 and can be spotted easily with nicer aluminum remote control built in the package. You can read my full review here. I using this Apple Universal Dock with my iPod touch which already have WAV music files on it and guess what, I am more convenience listening music from it. Just press the power or the home button from the iPod and find the music you want to hear. I turn on my amplifier and turn up the volume knob fully then I sit on my comfy sofa and let the remote control on hand control the volume up and down. This remote can do the next or previous music track al well. At the end of the music album, the iPod will be turn OFF automatically, I just need to power off the amplifier to turn off my system completely. It is so simple.

Then, across my mind, what the components inside this Dock? What makes this Dock sound better than the older model? I cannot find the internal picture of this model, except the older Apple Universal Dock A1256 already teardown on ifixit.com here. So here is the teardown process.

Early disclaimer, this teardown process will scratch the docking surface and can be damaging the unit itself. Like what I did right now.

Opening this unit up is very difficult. It require very hard work on it.

I guess I take about a hour to make the top cover removed.

The next process should be easy, I think.

I only remove five Philips screw that attaching the solid steel block to the board. This steel block function is only for weighting the unit to make the whole unit feel solid.

Once I removed this steel block, I also accidentally pull out the line out jack. This is bad news since this steel block attached by using double side tape to the board.

So here is the reward after long hours opening this unit, is photo of the internal components.

If you see really careful, this A1371 has 3 chip on board. The DAC chip is APPLE 338SO394, exactly the same with the older model.

So why this newer model can be sound better?

I cannot say much why this is better, but I think the layout of the others IC, which I think act as micro-processor and receiver are in different arrangement compare to the older model. This could be an improvement from Apple R&D and makes the line out sound better in the newer model.

So that's all the teardown process which cost me the docking itself become broken now.

Disclaimer: Any statement and photos in this article are not allowed to copy or publish without written permission from the writer. Any injury or loss from following tips in this article is not under writer responsibility.